I'm not going to discuss how the show is very different from the books, this annoyed me at first, but then I decided it didn't really matter. Douglas Adams's prose is all about hilarious descriptions and explanations so it is not very well suited for film. Once I got over the fact the series is nothing like the books, I found the show to be watchable and, at times, intriguing.
The acting, however, in my opinion, was nauseating. Everyone's acting apart from Elijah Wood (who just acts like he does in all his roles) can be described as silly. All the actors were asked to do strange voices and constantly make very silly faces. Dirk Gently (played by Samuel Barnett) seems to be an attractive and likable man in the split seconds when his face doesn't have a childish expression that made him seem terribly irritating. Other actors all act like they are 4-year-olds trapped in adults' bodies. I found this grotesque and almost impossible to watch; the characters seemed like they were all straight out of Alice in Wonderland, but without any of the witty lines.
The plot of the series was rather imaginative, although the first few episodes were just a sequence of seemingly random deaths that I found a little tiring to watch, everything began to come together and make some sense in the later parts of the show. I can't say I was gripped and couldn't wait to find out what everything was about, but it was fun to figure out who all the characters were and how they were connected. I thought there was a little too much death, and characters dying quickly became repetitive rather than shocking. The series ends on one of the least original or gripping cliffhangers I've seen − at the end everyone simply gets attacked, and we are expected to be worried what will come out of this. Apart from Todd (Elijah Wood) we don't really get much information about any of the characters. Everything we do find out is a little overly-sentimental: every character is terribly lonely, feels left out, thinks he is a useless disappointment, and has no friends. I guess this is fine, it's just that with all the unceasing kookiness of everything, it would be nice to have a something a little more cynical or down-to-earth, but maybe that's just my own silly preferences.
Overall, the series constantly and frenetically jumps from being quite dark to being sentimental and childish, there is really no in- between. None of the characters ever really stop to think about anything: half of them simply possess some kind of 'sense' that tells them where they need to be and what they need to do, the other half just keeps saying that nothing makes any sense. The comedy is based on craziness rather than smart lines, which would probably have saddened Douglas Adams. I'm sure that many will find the show more enjoyable than I did, perhaps I have become a bit too snobbish for this kind of thing.
The acting, however, in my opinion, was nauseating. Everyone's acting apart from Elijah Wood (who just acts like he does in all his roles) can be described as silly. All the actors were asked to do strange voices and constantly make very silly faces. Dirk Gently (played by Samuel Barnett) seems to be an attractive and likable man in the split seconds when his face doesn't have a childish expression that made him seem terribly irritating. Other actors all act like they are 4-year-olds trapped in adults' bodies. I found this grotesque and almost impossible to watch; the characters seemed like they were all straight out of Alice in Wonderland, but without any of the witty lines.
The plot of the series was rather imaginative, although the first few episodes were just a sequence of seemingly random deaths that I found a little tiring to watch, everything began to come together and make some sense in the later parts of the show. I can't say I was gripped and couldn't wait to find out what everything was about, but it was fun to figure out who all the characters were and how they were connected. I thought there was a little too much death, and characters dying quickly became repetitive rather than shocking. The series ends on one of the least original or gripping cliffhangers I've seen − at the end everyone simply gets attacked, and we are expected to be worried what will come out of this. Apart from Todd (Elijah Wood) we don't really get much information about any of the characters. Everything we do find out is a little overly-sentimental: every character is terribly lonely, feels left out, thinks he is a useless disappointment, and has no friends. I guess this is fine, it's just that with all the unceasing kookiness of everything, it would be nice to have a something a little more cynical or down-to-earth, but maybe that's just my own silly preferences.
Overall, the series constantly and frenetically jumps from being quite dark to being sentimental and childish, there is really no in- between. None of the characters ever really stop to think about anything: half of them simply possess some kind of 'sense' that tells them where they need to be and what they need to do, the other half just keeps saying that nothing makes any sense. The comedy is based on craziness rather than smart lines, which would probably have saddened Douglas Adams. I'm sure that many will find the show more enjoyable than I did, perhaps I have become a bit too snobbish for this kind of thing.